$210 and one deep breath later...

Have you ever been at a pivotal point in your life? I just registered for the May 31, 2008 administration of the MCAT, which is pretty serious poop if you ask me. It's definitely for real now. Not that it has been fake, but the gravity of the situation is settling in. I am excited and nervous because as a fellow pre-med student recently commented "it's only the rest of your life". At least I have 5+ months to study, and then one whole month of doing nothing but studying.

Cool Mtb Video

The video in this link is absolutely insane. The guy in this built the ramps on his property and shot it himself (or at least he said so). He rides his bike on boards which are like 2 inches wide about 5 feet off of the ground, along with some other cool stuff. It basically looks like a roller coaster for bikes, but you wouldn't catch me riding it.

http://www.pinkbike.com/video/5173/

Fridays rule without lab.

No O Chem lab today, so I thought I'd celebrate. Derek and I rode Dry Creek to Bobsled and had a blast. I made the serious mistake of eating my free Chipotle about an hour before and I almost lost it on the trail. Thankfully I didn't.

After we got home Kate, Derek, Chels and I went to dinner and to see "Dan in Real Life" and it was absolutely hilarious. It made Derek cry because it was so funny and Chels cry because it tugged on the heart strings, and best of all, it was clean.

Tomorrow I'm going horseback riding w/the Pops. This weekend is shaping up quite nicely.

Chipotle rules.

Kyle and I enjoyed free burritos and drinks from Chipotle on 21st and Highland today. The will have more tomorrow from 5-8pm for anyone who shows up.

My Dad

I have always loved hanging out with my dad. When I was a little kid, I thought that he was the absolute coolest person in the world, cooler than He-man (yep it's hyphenated) and Michelangelo my favorite ninja turtle. Everything about him was cool and somewhat of a mystery to me. I remember mowing the lawn with him and helping him push the lawn mower. I thought I was helping, but I am certain that everything I helped with took way longer, had to be redone or both. I loved it though.

Now that I have grown up (relatively speaking)I still love hanging out with my dad. This past weekend, he and I went for a bike ride up Dry Creek and down Bobsled. He is a good sport. Afterwards over lunch at the Pie, he confessed to me that he really didn't want to go initially, and that was the first bike ride together that he has really enjoyed. That means that I have dragged him up and down some pretty steep stuff and he did it just to hang out with me. I also love that he would go the Pie with me in his stretchy pants, which accentuate his serious chicken legs, and not care at all.

I love him for being my friend, unconditionally and unequivocally. He is a good man and I am lucky to have him in my life as an example. I hope that I will be as good of friends with my kids (and that I will have fun, no matter what I ride when I am 52).

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4922819970885011457&q=roam&hl=en

This is a really cool mtb video.

Hurray for the Office.

O Chem is owful.

Plain and simple. Although I like it much better than general chemistry, I still like it less than waiters that call me buddy or pal, and that's saying something.

Over the past week and a half, I have been getting ready for the test I took this morning. C's sisters/men/babies came to town last week and we had a lot of fun. My studying took a backseat to that as it should have, but after they left, it picked back up. In the last 48 hours, I think that I have slept all of 6 hours including 30min naps in the library. Yesterday I studied SN1, SN2, E1, E2 and synthesis problems from 5am to 1am with a 1 hour break for the class I couldn't miss, and then started up again at 6am until it started this morning at 7:30am.

The good news is that I think I did decent. Not stellar, but not terrible. The key word there is think. We'll see how it actually turns out. There are so many arrows, nucleophiles, bases, mechanisms, and reaction conditions to keep track of, it is almost impossible to get it all right.

I had been studying the things he put more emphasis on (sub-elim rxns) really hard, and glancing over the things he didn't. My trusty study buddy Kyle told me yesterday that Bub (yep, Bub. His real name is Merle, and on the first day of class, he told us he hated his name, and wanted us to call him Bub.) told him that 36% of the test was on synthesis. He only spent 5 minutes (if that) in class on synthesis. Naturally I glanced over it, and naturally that is what I had a really difficult time with today. I think I got 2 out of the 4 correct, and partial credit on the other 2.

My brain is so fried right now. I haven't been bloggin' for a while because I have been busy with school. I could probably be busy with school right now too, but I'd rather be busy listening to Jeff Buckley sing Bob Dylan's "Farewell Angelina" and spouting out some drivel. I think I deserve it. What's more, I think I deserve a bike ride today. I am going to see if D can go. Maybe dry creek. Sounds good to me. The song just changed to Smashing Pumpkins' version of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide". I love that song.

In fact, when I was on my mission, and I would start to miss C real bad, I would go stand out under the stars (and you have never seen stars like this - I guarantee it) and replay in my mind what it would be like if they let me be released early and she was waiting for me at the airport. I knew that it wasn't going to happen like that, and it didn't, but I still had my dream. I imagined myself in my favorite pair of jeans, my reef flops from C, my favorite t-shirt, and my big Sony headphones, playing "Landslide" as I walked up the jetway. Right after "I'm getting older too..." comes my favorite guitar part. I would listen to that as I rounded the corner and saw her face. Many nights that was the best sight for my tired eyes. I'd pull off my headphones, let them rest around my neck and we would kiss. I can't tell you how many times I played that scenario over in my head. In any event, I wasn't released early, she wasn't at the airport, and I didn't get my jeans or headphones. It was suit all the way home. She was however at home waiting. I got released, showered, and started doing my favorite thing in the world - falling for my wife.

So there you have it. I bet that surprises some of you. Most people see what I call my "realist" personality. C has a different word for it. At heart, I have always been, and always will be a hopeless romantic - (or just hopeless - 10 cool points for you and my respect if you know that song reference. Post a comment if you do.).

My mindless time is up. Time to get back to work.

Crest Ride w/ D

We are really quite fortunate in Utah to live 20 minutes away from riding like this. I absolutely love it. My guess is this will be the last big ride I will get to do because it will only get colder. There was quite a bit of snow up there on some of the north facing slopes which made life pretty interesting, especially the icy parts. All in all, we had lots of fun, and I consider it a success because last time I rode this trail I ended up in the ER getting stitches. We went to Davanza's after for lunch and it was awesome (it is right behind Chevron on Foothill, you should check it out. It was reasonably priced and definitely good grub.)
To sum it up,
No stitches + no crashes + beautiful views + mud + pizza = good ride + degrease(lube) = fun

This is from the top of Puke Hill, if you look hard, you can kind of see where the trail breaks the tree line. In the middle of the big patch of trees you can see a slight shadow that runs horizontally, that is the trail before Puke Hill.
This is puke hill, and it winds down to the right at the base.

This is D at the top of Desolation Peak. Park City's lifts are off in the distance.
Still at the top of Desolation, looking down on Desolation Lake.
Ahh, singletrack.
The quakies were awesome.
This is near the Mill D trailhead.
This doesn't really do it justice. We were both covered in mud and our bikes were plastered. The timer feature was a great invention.
A dirty bike is a happy bike.
Cool colors on the drive home.

My Project

So I have a little project I am thinking about. I really want to go to Samoa to do some service. I have done quite a bit of thinking about it, and I would like to teach first aid/basic life support and donate materials to do these things to several villages. In my experience as a missionary there, it was very apparent that these skills were seriously deficient - virtually nonexistent. There is no emergency medical service infrastructure (i.e. paramedics, ambulances, etc.) besides the Moto'otua hospital which is bulging at the seams. There are some satellite stations in remote villages that nurses visit occasionally, but in truth it is not enough. Many people I know in Samoa have stories of friends or loved ones dying in the waiting room because the system was so over taxed. There is a need for action.

Conditions are prime for infection because of the warm and humid climate, especially with hardly any lay knowledge of appropriate wound cleaning and dressing. I remember seeing and taking care of hugely infected wounds which would have been fine had they been properly cared for initially. Diabetes mellitus and hypertension are also huge problems. Due to poor diets and a sedentary lifestyle in much of the elderly population, diabetes is rampant. Many care takers do not understand the ramifications of these diseases, much less how to help their loved ones in when they are in need. Infant mortality rates in Samoa are also much higher than in the US. Although first aid and basic life support are no substitute for quality medical care in emergencies, they are essential components in saving lives. If CPR is administered appropriately, there is a greater chance of survival than if it is not. I could go on, but I believe that the benefits are clear.

After having trained and certified as an Emergency Medical Technician, I would like to teach these people I love how to prolong and improve quality of life. I also feel that if I receive the opportunity to provide educational services now, I will be laying the groundwork for humanitarian service I strongly desire to render as a medical professional in years to come.

I have spent countless hours searching for humanitarian groups who provide such services in Samoa, but they simply don't exist. There is a Red Cross branch in Samoa, which provides occasional training services, but they are offered in Apia, and likely not well publicized or attended by citizens outside of the downtown area due to financial (travel) and geographical constraints.

While I lived in Samoa, I was a student of the language as well as the culture and local government. I grew to love it as I grew to love the people. Implementing an educational program in Samoa such as this requires careful attention and respect to the rich cultural heritage. I am very familiar with the culture and I can provide that attention.

Strategy is also an important component of an effective program. Because location and expenses are an issue, it is important to assemble comprehensive and effective supply kits, and to place them in central areas which are too far away from the hospital to receive immediate care. The funding I will obtain will likely be the determining factor for the number of kits placed.

If I can get funded, I am going to go in June. It's not cheap though. Airfare will be over $4,000 for me and my wife (I am going to try and do something with teaching English too). I am trying to find support and feedback wherever I can.

Phew, that sounds like I am pitching it to you. This is the first time I have sat down and put my ideas on paper. Do you have any ideas? I would love feedback.

Road bike?

This is my dad's fancy road bike. I took it out yesterday for a little jaunt, and I am considering buying one this summer. I liked it, but it isn't as much fun as mtb for me. I think that it may be too small for me. It is a 53cm and I felt a little cramped. Then again, I don't know exactly how it is supposed to fit.

Derek and I went out for what will probably be the final Dry Creek > Bobsled run of the fall today. I think we are going to hit the Crest on Thursday for what will no doubt be the last time this season. I bet we are going to hit some snow. I will be taking the camera, and I will post some pics.

Hyphenation

Before this gets going, I must make a disclaimer. My father and all of my sisters are English majors. My dad is an attorney and two of my sisters are editors. At any point during a typical Sunday dinner, it is not uncommon to hear "Well, according to the Chicago manual of style..." followed by some sort of correction. This undoubtedly played a huge part in the development of what many consider to be my picky nature. I come by it honestly and genetically.

Andrew S. and I recently had a discussion about hyphenation. He maintains that if a word is made up, hyphens can be arbitrarily inserted on a whim by the wordsmith. I personally disagree. After conference today, I asked my editor sister and father what they thought. My dad said "I think that they are overused" and my sister said "I think that they are often incorrectly used." Candidly, there is not necessarily a correct or incorrect way to use them. In general, hyphens are used to form compound adjectives or adverbs, as well as dipthongs.

Hyphens are used chiefly to make things more clear for the reader. As I was reading about "humid-ville" and "tune-age", I was not feeling like things were more clear. In point of fact, "tune-age like 'stone-age'" would lead me to think that the music in the player would be from the age of tunes rather some tunage. Furthermore, I think that such usage of hyphens is contrary to AK's style. AK has a very wry sense of humor, and if you aren't listening closely, you will miss the hilarious things he says. Hyphenating humidville draws more attention in writing than it would in normal conversation with him.

So there you have it according to the PL manual of style.

A few of my favorite trip pics...

1st night at Jackson Lake

I decided to post a few of my favorite pics from our recent trip. We went to Jackson Lake, Yellowstone, Coeur de Alene, Seattle, Crater Lake, the Redwoods, San Francisco, and Newport Beach. It was the most fun and relaxation C and I have had since we got married.

C and I went out on the lake on a sea kayak, and then I discovered she didn't know how to skip rocks. If my grandpa T knew about that when we were dating, he would have made it a point to teach her before she was allowed into the family. To be safe, I took care of it as soon as I found out.
You can see Grand Teton in the background. This was taken on what was deemed a "mountain bike trail" - yeah right. It was a dirt road that was supposed to lead to a river, which we never did see because it started to rain and we were about 5 miles away from our campground. We took off quick.
The obligatory tourist photo at Old Faithful.

Mystic Falls, Yellowstone
I joked with C that these Falls were lulling me into a Mystic surrender without the shanai.
This is Natural Bridge, also a supposed mtb ride which turned out to be a road. Cool views.

This was a really cool part of east Yellowstone. There were lots of buffalo here.
I have no idea why that came up as a hyperlink, but I can't get it to go away.

Some buffalo in artsy sepia (Picasa is pretty cool.).
The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.
Some rad mountain goats on a hike we did. See those clouds in the upper left hand corner? They turned into a wicked storm. How wicked? It was blowing so hard on top that when a gust came, it moved both of us, holding hands a good two feet. It also moved the tree in the picture below.
This was standing on our way up. You can't tell from the picture, but this is a good 25' tree.
The picture doesn't do this justice. It had to be a good 3' from point to point on this sucker. He was absolutely huge, and just chillin' about 15' from the roadside. Everyone was pulled over looking at him, and he could have cared less.
Our first night in Seattle, K , K and family took us to the ghetto to experience some Ethiopian food. It was really good. You grab pieces of the spongy, gray sourdough like tortilla thing called anjara and scoop up what ever you want to eat. I loved it. Some people in Utah think that anything west of state street is ghetto. They would be wetting their pants if they even got close to this neighborhood. In fact, it was right next to an apartment with a notice on it that read "This location monitored frequently by the Seattle PD for drug activity", when in actuality, it is not often monitored, and is a known drug trafficking location.

This is Alki beach, about 15 minutes from the Ethiopian place. It was really pretty.
C, Me, B, C, K and K at Alki.
I miss ocean sunsets. This was ok, but I miss my island sunsets.
Wakeboarding the next morning for my first time on lake Sammamish.
Pike's Place Market.
The guys at the fish stand gave us some alder smoked salmon. It was awesome.

Cream Tangerine (Beatles cover band) at the park on the water in Redmond.
Crater Lake, OR
It looks really cool, but you can't really get down to the water and there isn't much else to do there. If we did it all over again, we wouldn't have stopped here.
This was pretty hilarious. We woke up in Crater Lake and went to shower. C just about forgot her towel and I kind of made fun of her a little. Then, I had the awful realization while naked and lathering that I had forgotten my towel. There was only one other guy in the bathroom, but the door to the outside was wide open. I didn't want to get dressed again in all of my dirty clothes or get my clean ones wet. I b-lined it commando style for the door and shut it before anyone saw, and then spotted the paper towel dispenser. I only had time to grab four before the guy next to me started to get out of his shower. I got completely dry with four paper towels and couldn't resist a picture.
This was our first stop in NorCal, at Patrick Creek. We got bored and decided to check the creek out. The water was really clear and really cold. I spotted a few water snakes and tried (unsuccessfully) to catch them. Hey, so what if I am easily amused.
I am at the bottom near the road for scale. The Redwoods are insane. If you have never seen them, you need to. It is hands down one of the coolest things I have ever seen.
This is the pier in Crescent City, CA.
C and I were driving through Crescent City looking for lunch when we spotted a bunch of seriously expensive classics - like a Rolls and Bentley. We followed them to a cool free car show where I found this all original '61 Coupe de Ville.
After over 7 mind-numbing (notice appropriate hyphenation AK) hours in the car, we hit the not so golden Golden Gate bridge.
Chowda at Boudin in Fisherman's Wharf.
Bay Bridge.
Ghiardelli Square from the water. Ghiradelli Square was one touristy thing I could have done without. I paid $7 for one of the worst ice-cream sundaes I have ever had in my life.
Alcatraz
C enjoying her dumplings in Chinatown.
Bay Cruise
Balboa Island
Huntington Beach

Here it is, my new ride. I spent most of today fixing a few things on it and now she rides like a dream.

So it's been a while...

Yeah, it has, but it's not like anyone has noticed but me. After all, no one really reads this anyway, mostly because I have only told 3 people about it. We had a pretty killer summer. Physics just about killed me, but I got to go on a great vacation with C and we had a blast. I got more new bike stuff as well, which if you know me, never hurts.

In fact, I just finished tuning everything up on Friday. I am hoping for a maiden voyage this week. I'll probably post a picture of it later, but for right now, I don't feel like it. It's rad. I told C that if the SWAT team had bikes, this would be it. It's all black.

Any takers on a ride? I am thinking maybe the Crest if I can pull it off.

Rant for the day

I just got out of one of the most difficult tests I have ever taken. It was absolutely awful. I have no one to vent to because Chels is in class and we are way over on minutes this month, so I can't really call anyone. So my first blog entry is going to be a rather scathing and heated review of this teacher and his style of teaching.

First off, there are things that I hate in life. Waiting in long lines, dealing with obnoxious people, group projects with lazy people, math, and probably most of all chemistry. It didn't help that the test this morning was in chemistry.

Last semester I worked my butt off and I got an A in chemistry. This semester I worked even harder, and I might not even pull a B ( I am going to be borderline B, B-). Just to give you an idea what the tests were like, they were open book, open notes and the average for the first one was 55/100. The second average was 66/100 (or so) and the third was like 69/100. I scored 46, 83, and 91 respectively. I spent ridiculous amounts of time studying after the first test, and I improved each time.

There was a cycle that I noticed. My professor would explain things fairly well, but not with too much detail. His lectures were entertaining and understandable. He gave test reviews that seemed to be very thorough and clear, but when the actual tests came, it was a different story. He admitted on several occasions that he "would never give (us) a problem that we could just stick into an equation and get the answer", but that his problems were written with the intention of tricking us. WHAT?! He always painted this rosy picture of how fair he is and that he "won't put anything on the test that wasn't covered in class". I was under the impression that you are supposed to be tested on the material that is presented in the course, not what you can pull out of thin air, but I guess I'm wrong. With his seemingly thorough reviews, promises of fairness and open book, open note tests, he lulled us into a false sense of security.

In preparation for each test, I have spent more time studying and felt more confident. Although I have improved, the relationship between effort and performance have not been linear. Alas, there is nothing else for me to do but vent.

Why do teachers take it upon themselves to make things more difficult than they need to be? It seems to me that most teachers have an overinflated sense of the importance of their subject matter in the world. Take for example my first algebra teacher in college. She made us re-learn long division because she didn't think that using a calculator was acceptable. Are you kidding me? For the rest of my adult life, I will probably never want/need to perform any such calculations without using a calculator. If I remember correctly, when she informed us of this, being the surly back-row freshman I was, I voiced considerable discontent. In her equally lame and geeky retort, she cited some kind of "what if" desert island scenario in which I needed to calculate the fraction of coconuts it would take me to do something. I replied that statistically speaking, I would probably never find myself in such a scenario, and that if I did, I certainly wouldn't care to know. She was firm in her resolve and I muttered unkind things under my breath every time I realized that I had to do long division. I hated that class.

One more philosophical rant and then I'm done. Right now, I am trying to finish my pre-med classes so that I can get in to medical school. Most of the classes are pretty difficult and time consuming. Although I can see some application for the stuff (around 10 ppm of information that flows through my brain while in these classes), most of it is not going to be terribly useful. As a physician, I will not likely be concerned with trigonal bi-planar molecular geometries, enthalpies of fusion (one question I surely missed on the test), integrals, differentials, Arf/Sar complexes, or pretty much any of the physics I am going to be tackling this summer.

Why learn it then? Because it is a rite of passage. Why is that even necessary? Getting in to med school is such a joke. I am supposed to be taking this rigorous (and largely waste-o-time) course load, have 3-6 hours of volunteering per week, 3-6 hours of research experience per week, 3-6 hours of leadership hours per week, study for the MCAT, and still have a life that makes me a "well-rounded" candidate. It seems more like they are trying to kill as many people off as possible, and then after you get in, they try to kill you again in class, and then yet again in residency.

That probably didn't accomplish much, but if I were in my shoes (which I am, rad herringbone slip on vans to be exact), and I read this, I would respond with by shaking the "fists of fury" at the man. Just like grandpa Simpson always says "shake harder boy".